Dreaming My Animal Selves: Le Songe de mes Ames Animales (Bilingual Collection in French and English)

This was a book in which one could believe in the Otherworld. Each poem seemed like a different dream created by a being that may not be human. I'm so glad that I purchased this book and I'm looking forward to reading more poetry from Helene Cardona.

Dreaming My Animal Selves: Le Songe de mes Ames Animales (Bilingual Collection in French and English) Helene Cardona has managed the impossible here: she has combined a perfect mastery of words with an exquisite imagination to explore the inner world of animals and the hidden worlds of the human heart.The poems in DREAMING themselves have the quality of dreams, where all things are possible, and we fly"behind a procession of swansto an island in the heart of Paris...The dream opens forgotten realms of creation."But when I look more closely at these poems- and they are so well designed, and multi-layered, that you will also want to go back to them over and over- I was astonished by the echoes and resonances the poet has woven in her poems, and you will find winks to Ovid and Saint John Perse and H.D.Ms. Cardona wears her erudition lightly, so that what is most evident at first is a deep sense of love for the world and a marvel of its creations: her heart has mastered possibility. Of the six languages in which she is fluent, two of them appear in DREAMING MY ANIMAL SELVES: English and French. As for forms, however formless dreams may seem, it is only the writers of the highest rank who can sculpt the feeling of a dream in language. In "Peregrine Pantoum" Helene Cardona has taken on one of the most complex and difficult poetic forms in existence, the pantoun, and accomplishes it with grace and elegant and apparent ease (it's not easy, it's impossible. Please, you try it)...I loved this book. I hope you will too. The poetry world will be talking about it for a long time.

In her newest book, Dreaming My Animal Selves, imparted in both English and French, poet and actress Hélène Cardona opens for humanity a vision of our place within creation, our deepest memory, and the divine mystery that surrounds us at all times. Fully embracing this openness in each word and verse that flows across the pages, in poems arising from her being. An openness that will transform our own perceptions of how we are so closely interconnected with one another, the world, and creation itself.With a master artist's hand, the poet paints for the viewer images as vivid as any painting by Van Gogh or Chagall, drawing upon their images of light and purity that unveil the beauty before us, arising from the hidden in-between "thin places" where we feel and come to know life fully. She helps us to see beyond our normal everyday vision, into an astonishing world that is surrounded by beauty and light, understanding both in the mystery of a single moment. Her words reclaim for us the perfect sight found within our own imaginations and spiritual being, the human psyche.In reading these poems I am reminded of something a friend once told me. That each artist must form a new language in every work of art they create. This is true, we all speak in different tongues, and yet, it is through the voice of the human heart we come to know and be known by others and within creation. Dreaming My Animal Selves captures this feeling, this divine dance in a wonderful choreography of words and images. Dreaming My Animal Selves: Le Songe de mes Ames Animales

Reading "Dreaming My Animal Selves/ Le Songe de mes Ames Animales" was a sumptuous experience for me, much like eating the ripest, juiciest and most beautiful of pomegranates!Each magical poem was like savoring one mythical, burgundy, jewel-like seed after another - so delicious and precious on its own... enjoyable on the tongue. Savored and digested by - the heart.The collection is also pomegranate-like in that it is beautifully, magically structured. Divided into three chapters, "Dreaming My Animal Selves" is bilingual, featuring English and French translations by the author, herself, and stunning cover art by artist Jackie Morris.A fertile, rich and abundant delight.

Are you ready to shut the noise off from your day? Turn off your phone? And be transported to another place and time?The vessels are short, deep, and unworldly. Little meditations of another time, another world, deep within you.If you're a man, remember that time when you were a boy, when romance was a mystery, a heartbeat, a time of candles and deep shadows.And that fantasy of having a beautiful woman in your bed with a French accent reciting the most gorgeous of poetry transporting you to sleep?This is the author, and this is the book.It's up to you now.

Put it on your to read list and be sure to do so. A fantastical journey in search of a place of light and wholeness. Not to be miseed.

wonderful fun and easy to read.

So immersive and beautiful!